Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Shakespeare. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Shakespeare. Mostrar todas las entradas

martes, 2 de noviembre de 2021

2. LITERATURA INGLESA RENACENTISTA

2. LITERATURA INGLESA RENACENTISTA

El día 2 trataremos sobre Donne, Marvell y la literatura de mediados del siglo XVII, terminando el tema 2. Y pasamos la semana siguiente al tema 3 (literatura de la Restauración y Siglo XVIII) empezando por JOHN MILTON.


En la Sección B, seguimos con el Tema 7, con Philip Larkin y Harold Pinter: Literatura inglesa y norteamericana 1900-1960.


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Algunos prosistas ingleses de la primera mitad del siglo XVII:



Sir Francis Bacon  (1561-1626)

_____. Essays. 
1597, 1612, 1625.   Observaciones sobre prudencia, gobierno, sabiduría, y ética, por parte de un político importante.
_____.  The Advancement of Learning.
1605.  Una panorámica del conocimiento de su época y de sus progresos.
_____.  Novum Organum. 
1620.  Una nueva teoría de la ciencia experimental, en oposición a Aristóteles.
_____. The New Atlantis.
1627. Una visión utópica del futuro de la ciencia.

 



Robert Burton
    (1577-1640)
_____. The Anatomy of Melancholy. 1621-1638. (An encyclopedic baroque treatise on depression, madness, and love melancholy).


 
 





 
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
_____. De Cive.
1642. English trans 1651.
_____. Human Nature: or The Fundamental Elements of Policy.
1650.
_____. De Corpore Politico: or the Elements of Law, Moral and Politick.
1650.
_____. Leviathan: Or the Matter, Form, and Power of A Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil.
Political philosophy. 1651. (Una de las principales obras de teoría política de todos los tiempos, y una justificación del poder absoluto del Estado).
_____.
The Elements of Philosophy. 1655.
_____. Opera philosophica quae Latine scripsit.  1668.
_____. Behemoth: The History of the Causes of the Civil Wars of England.
1679, rev. ed. 1681.
_____
, trans. The Iliads and Odysses of Homer. 1675.



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  Más sobre el gran filósofo Thomas Hobbes (NIVEL AVANZADO)

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Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682)
_____.  Religio Medici.   1643. Una defensa de la fe y de la moderación en religión, desde el punto de vista anglicano.
_____. Vulgar Errors (Pseudodoxia Epidemica). 1646. Una colección de curiosidades históricas y científicas, y refutación de errores populares al respecto.
_____.  Hydriotaphia, or Urn Burial... together with The Garden of Cyrus.  1658. Una meditación sobre la mortalidad y las sepulturas, y otra sobre la estructura numérica del universo.





Repaso histórico:

Algunos acontecimientos importantes del siglo XVII inglés:

Reinado de Jacobo I ("The Jacobean age") 1603-1625. Unión de las coronas inglesa y escocesa (pero no de los reinos). Colonias anglicanas en Virginia.
The Gunpowder Plot (1605) - "Guy Fawkes Day," the 5th of November. Odio público a los católicos.

Reinado de su hijo Charles I
("The Caroline age"), 1625-1649. Supremacía anglicana, y nuevas colonias (puritanas) en Nueva Inglaterra.

Guerras civiles y primera revolución: 1640-48 - "Long Parliament" y Commonwealth. Supresión de la Iglesia anglicana (y de los teatros y fiestas populares).

Ejecución de Charles I (1649). Oliver Cromwell, "Lord Protector" (1653-58)  (Sobre estos acontecimientos puede verse la película MATAR A UN REY (To Kill a King)).

Restauración de Charles II (1660-85), del anglicanismo y de los teatros y fiestas populares.

James II (Jacobo II, hermano de Charles II) reina 1685-88 - reacción contra el rey católico.

Segunda revolución inglesa (1688) - Reinado de William of Orange y Mary II (hija de James II). Monarquía parlamentaria.

Unión de los reinos de Inglaterra y Escocia: The United Kingdom of Great Britain (bajo Queen Anne, hija de James II, en 1707).

 

 

 
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Finales de octubre-principios de noviembre. Dejamos atrás a Shakespeare,  y nuestros siguientes autores de las lecturas serán por este orden Ben Jonson, John Donne, y Andrew Marvell, terminando así el tema 2. Traed sus lecturas, es importante tener los textos a mano en clase para hacer notas, etc. Mirad que leer literatura clásica es una manera intensiva de practicar y aprender inglés, para mejorar el nivel.

A continuación empezaremos el tema 3, "Literatura inglesa 1660-1800" con otro de los principales clásicos ingleses, John Milton.

 

 

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ANDREW MARVELL         (1621-1678)
   

English metaphysical poet and satirist, born in Yorkshire, lived in Kingston-upon-Hull, studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, BA 1639; father died while he was a student; patronized by wealthy friends, 1640s travels widely in Europe, visits Constantinople; 1651-2 tutor for Sir Thomas Fairfax's family at Nunappleton, Yorkshire; later tutor employed by Oliver Cromwell near Eton; then lived in London, 1657 assistant to Milton as Latin Secretary; 1660, 1661 MP for Hull, 1662-5 diplomatic secretary in Holland and Russia; Opposition MP for Hull, salaried by constituents; friend of Prince Rupert, anti-Government satirist under the Restoration, anti-Anglican polemicist, refused employment and bribes from the King, died of a 'tertian ague', some say poisoned; buried at St. Giles; poems published posthumously by his housekeeper or alleged wife.

_____. "An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland." Written 1650.
_____. "Upon Appleton House." Poem. 1651, pub. 1678.
_____. "Bermudas." Poem.  c. 1650.
_____. "The Garden." Poem. c. 1650. Luminarium:
    http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/garden.htm
_____. "The Mower against Gardens." Poem. c. 1650.
http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/mowagainst.htm
_____. "To His Coy Mistress."    c. 1650. http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/Classic%20Poems/Marvell/to_his_coy_mistress.htm
_____. (Anon.). An Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government in England....  Prose satire. "Amsterdam", 1678. (Folio).
_____. Miscellaneous Poems.  1681.

Sobre Andrew Marvell, unos apuntes complementarios.



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JOHN DONNE (1572-1631)
English metaphysical poet, b. London, Catholic gentry stock; st. Oxford, Cambridge, Lincoln's Inn; travelled Spain and Italy; secretary to Lord Chancellor and MP; secretly married patron's niece Anne More, dismissed in disgrace; many children, impoverished gentry, l. Surrey, ordained Anglican Priest; favour at King James's Court, Dean of St. Paul's, theatrical preacher, notorious weaver of paradoxes and alambicated wit.

_____. "Songs and Sonets" —in Poems.
_____. "Elegies"—in Poems.
_____. "Satires." —in Poems.
_____. Biathanatos. Discourse on suicide. Written 1608, posth. pub.
_____. Pseudo-Martyr. Discourse against Catholics. 1610.
_____. Ignatius His Conclave. Prose satire. 1610-11.
 _____. The First Anniversary. Elegy. 1611.
_____. "Divine Poems." —in  Poems.
_____. Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. 1624.
_____. Poems.  1633. 2nd ed. 1635.
_____. Essays in Divinity. 1651.



Apuntes sobre Donne:


John Donne.  In Luminarium:
http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/index.html



Some notes on John Donne (from The Penguin Short History of English Literature).

-A note on the metaphysical poets and the metaphysical conceit.
 
- Un famoso pasaje de las Devotions upon Emergent Occasions de Donneno es propiamente un poema, pero también lo es: No Man is an Island.


Otro famoso poema de Donne: "The Canonization": http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173353

- John Donne, Sonnet XIX - O to vex me...
 
- Sobre "The Good-Morrow"
está esta explicación que hice yo hace tiempo, o esta otra en vídeo.
 

 
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NIVEL AVANZADO:  Dos poemas de otros "poetas metafísicos" anglicanos:

- George Herbert: "Prayer, 1".

- Henry Vaughan: "The Retreat."

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BEN JONSON     (1572-1637)

English dramatist and poet, born in Westminster, orphaned son of a Protestant minister, studied at Westminster School, left Cambridge without a degree, apprenticed as bricklayer to his stepfather; volonteer in Flanders army 1592, killed enemy in single combat, actor in London c. 1594, imprisoned for manslaughter, converted to Catholicism for some time, married 1594, 2 children died; returned to Anglicanism 1606; pensioned by the King 1616; honorary MA Oxford 1619; poet for aristocratic patrons, apologist of Stuart royalty; neoclassical theorist and literary authority, overweight and hard drinker; model for Cavalier poets and Restoration dramatists.


_____.  Every Man in his Humour. Comedy. 1596, 1598. (Prologue)
_____. Cynthia's Revels. Drama.  1600.
_____. Every Man Out of His Humour. Comedy. 1600.
_____. The Poetaster. Comedy. Acted at Blackfriars, 1601.
_____. Sejanus His Fall. Tragedy. 1603.
_____. The Masque of Blackness. Acted 1605.

_____. Volpone. Comedy. 1606.
_____. Epicoene: Or, The Silent Woman. Comedy. 1609-10.
_____. The Masque of Queens. 1609.
_____. The Alchemist. Comedy. c. 1610.
_____. Catiline His Conspiracy. Tragedy. Pub. 1611.
_____. Love Restored. Masque. 1612.
_____. Bartholomew Fair. Comedy. 1614.
_____. The Workes of Beniamin Jonson.  1616.

_____. "To the Memory of my Beloved, Master William Shakespeare, and What He Has Left Us." 1623. 
_____. The Staple of Newes. Comedy. 1626.
_____. Works. 2nd ed. 1640. (Including: Timber: Or, Discoveries, criticism).

 

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 Some notes on Ben Jonson


Ben Jonson: NIVEL AVANZADO
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El lunes 2 seguiremos con Ben Jonson, y pasamos rápidamente a Donne y Marvell, para terminar la unidad 2.

El 25 y 26 de octubre seguimos centrados en Shakespeare, y pasamos a continuación a Ben Jonson.

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 NIVEL AVANZADO: Hamlet.

 

 

Richard II: The Deposition Scene (IV.1)

As You Like It: All the World's a Stage

Macbeth: The Sleepwalking Scene (V.1)



SHAKESPEARE -  MÁS MATERIALES A NIVEL AVANZADO

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Esta semana vemos algo de Shakespeare. Leed algo por anticipado— o id recuperando algo de lecturas pasadas si preferís. Voy añadiendo materiales relativos a los temas ya vistos en clase, en cada una de las unidades.

No olvidéis traer los textos a clase.
Procuraremos leer todos los días un ratito, y traducir y comentar al paso. Así pues, esta semana Shakespeare primero, y después pasamos a Jonson, Donne y Marvell, por ese orden.



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Una introducción a Shakespeare en su contexto histórico (nivel algo avanzado).

En Project Gutenberg tenéis los textos completos de todas las obras de Shakespeare. Por ejemplo:

The Tragedy of King Richard II

(the deposition scene: 4.1)

 

Hay muchas películas sobre obras de Shakespeare. Sobre el mismo Shakespeare, una película reciente recomendable es All Is True (El último acto), de Kenneth Branagh. Aquí una canción de Shakespeare de esta película: "Fear No More".

 


Seguimos mientras añadiendo autores del siglo XX en la SECCIÓN B

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WORKS BY SHAKESPEARE


William Shakespeare (1564-1616), born and dead in Stratford-upon-Avon, leading dramatist with the King's Men at the Globe Theatre, London; poet and actor; collaborated with Ben Jonson, Marston, and Fletcher; major writer of history plays, comedies, tragicomedies, tragedies and dramatic romances. Total dramatist, both realistic, poetic and metadramatic; keen sense of the stage and of social dramatism; artificer of creative language, of complex and diverse characters, and of fast-moving plots usually based on previous dramas or stories.



EARLY WORKS (1589-93):

Titus Andronicus
The Comedy of Errors
Henry VI (3 parts)
Richard III

and later (1593-97)

The Taming of the Shrew
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Love's Labour's Lost
Romeo and Juliet
King John
Richard II
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Merchant of Venice

Venus and Adonis (1593)
The Rape of Lucrece (1594)


MIDDLE WORKS (1598-1604)

Henry IV (2 parts)
Henry V
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Much Ado About Nothing
Julius Caesar
As You Like It
Hamlet
Twelfth Night
Troilus and Cressida
All's Well that Ends Well
Measure for Measure


LATER TRAGEDIES (1605-8):

Othello
King Lear
Macbeth
Antony and Cleopatra
Coriolanus
Timon of Athens



ROMANCES AND LAST WORKS

The Sonnets (1609)

Pericles
Cymbeline
The Winter's Tale
The Tempest

Henry VIII
The Two Noble Kinsmen


Collected plays in the "First Folio", a.k.a.

Mr William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories and Tragedies,
1623.





UNA COMEDIA FESTIVA DE SHAKESPEARE (EN ESPAÑOL). NOCHE DE REYES, por Morfeo Teatro, grupo de teatro de nuestra Facultad.



(Nuestra selección, min. 25)





An introductory lesson on Shakespeare. There are a few mistakes, but anyway it's lively and worth hearing.




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Sección B: Recordatorio: Id estudiando a la par los autores del  siglo XX. Ahora vamos por la Unidad 6.
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SECCIÓN A:

Una introducción sencillita a Shakespeare, en español:  "La Biblioteca: William Shakespeare": https://soundcloud.com/cesarvidal/la-biblioteca-050516

- Y otra en inglés: https://youtu.be/QPMbnodlFgM

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NIVEL AVANZADO:


Shakespeare: Nivel avanzado

 

Una lección sobre King Lear, una de sus grandes tragedias.

En español, una representación de Hamlet (Estudio 1).

 
Entrar en Shakespeare es no salir. Quien quiera ampliar conocimientos sobre él (y es, dicho mal y pronto, el autor más importante que haya escrito jamás en cualquier literatura) tiene millones de páginas en Internet. Ask Google. 


Y unas notas sobre dos contemporáneos que precedieron a Shakespeare: Kyd y Marlowe.
 
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Con los Pilares acabamos la primera fase del curso "antes de Shakespeare". Momento de reflexión y evaluación sobre la marcha del curso...

-  ¿Seguís bien las clases? Si hay problemas de comprensión, etc.—se admiten más preguntas en clase, y consulta de dudas en tutorías. Quienes no asistan, espero que lleven una marcha de estudio constante sin embargo, porque no es en absoluto recomendable el intentar prepararse esta asignatura en unas pocas semanas antes del examen.

- ¿Tenéis material adecuado? Habéis comprado, en efecto, un buen diccionario, un buen manual o dos, de literatura inglesa y norteamericana?

- ¿Consultáis con regularidad esta web y los materiales adicionales? ¿Os acordáis de traer a clase las lecturas al día? ¿Vais siguiendo por vuestra cuenta la sección B del programa (siglo XX), a la par que la sección A?

Si no es el caso, ahora estáis a tiempo de coger la marcha, que aún estamos iniciando el curso. Pero si no lo habéis hecho hasta ahora, pensad que requiere quizá un cambio de hábitos y más horario semanal dedicado al estudio de esta asignatura.

Id decidiendo ya si queréis hacer trabajos de curso o solamente examen final, y organizad el trabajo de modo acorde. Si alguien quiere hacer los trabajos en forma de presentación en clase, que me aviste para fijar fecha.

- Para la preparación de la materia del examen: tened en cuenta que una pregunta del tema será el nombre de uno de los autores de la sección A del programa, para hacer una redacción en inglés sobre él. Otro tema de redacción (a elegir entre el primero y éste) será más amplio, sobre un género y época, tipo "La poesía en el Renacimiento"—pero naturalmente conviene hablar en ella de los autores y lecturas que conozcáis relacionados con esa cuestión, y utilizar tanto lo que oigáis en clase o preparéis con manuales, como vuestra propia experiencia de lectura. El comentario / traducción (parte principal del examen) puede ser de cualquier texto del programa, pero si pongo un texto de la sección B será a elegir con otro de la sección A.


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 El 9 de octubre leeremos algo de Spenser (The Faerie Queene), y pasamos a Shakespeare.

 

 

English drama before Shakespeare:

 

- Medieval Mysteries and Moralities 


- Humanist drama:

John Heywood,  The Play of the Weather. 1533.

Nicholas Udall, Ralph Roister Doister. c. 1552.

Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, Gorboduc. 1562.


- The University Wits:

John Lyly, Sapho and Phao. 1584.
_____. Endimion.
1591. 

- Robert Greene, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. c. 1589. 

- Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy. 1580s.

- Christopher Marlowe,
_____. Tamburlaine the Great.  c. 1586.
_____. The Jew of Malta. 
c. 1592.
_____. Edward II. 
1593.
_____. Doctor Faustus. 
c. 1592-93.

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 Después de los Pilares, pasamos a la unidad 2 - Renaissance literature. Necesitaremos los textos de Sidney, Spenser y Shakespeare (de éste hay varios).


El lunes hablamos sobre todo de un par de poetas renacentistas, Sidney y Spenser. Sobre ambos hay material en Luminarium, un interesante sitio web sobre literatura inglesa clásica que tenéis recomendado en el programa.

"Sir Philip Sidney." At Luminarium.org
    http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/sidney.htm




Luego pasaremos a Shakespeare, de quien hay una selección más larga de fragmentos. Id leyendo lo que podáis, y traed a clase los textos. También se pueden consultar problemas de comprensión con las lecturas en tutorías, tomando nota de vuestras dudas.

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SIR PHILIP SIDNEY         (1554-1586)

English renaissance poet, critic and man of letters, aristocratic courtier under Elizabeth, and Protestant leader; d. in combat at Zutphen, Low Countries.

_____.  Arcadia.
Prose romance. 1580s, pub. 1590.
_____. Astrophil and Stella.
Sonnet sequence. c. 1582, pub. 1591, 1598. (Sonnet 1 - Sonnet 45)
_____. An Apologie for Poetry or The Defence of Poetry.
Discourse. Written c. 1580, pub. 1595.


- A video lecture on Sidney - Astrophil and Stella


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NIVEL AVANZADO:

The English humanists 

- A video documentary on Sir Philip Sidney.

The Elizabethan Sonnet

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EDMUND SPENSER         (1552-1599)

English poet, b. London middle classes, st. Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, MA 1576; colonist in Ireland, advocates famine and genocide, victim of Irish rebellion, Elizabethan courtier, quasi-Poet laureate.

_____.
"Visions" and sonnets, trans. from Petrarch and du Bellay.
_____. The Shepheards Calendar.
1579.
_____. "Astrophel."
Elegy on Sir Philip Sidney.
_____. Complaints.
1591.
_____. Colin Clouts come Home again.
Pastoral. 1595.
_____. Amoretti.
Sonnet sequence. c. 1595.
_____. Four Hymns on Love and Beauty.
1596.
_____. Epithalamion. Poem.
1595
_____. Prothalamion. Poem.
1596.
_____. The Faerie Queene.
Unfinished epic poem. Books 1-3, 1590. Then 1596, 1609.
_____. A View of the Present State of Ireland.
1596, pub. 1603.






Read also Sonnet 75



Spenserian stanza: ababbcbcc (with a final Alexandrine)


Una pequeña introducción a Spenser, del Oxford Companion to English Literature.


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NIVEL AVANZADO

The Faerie Queene (Oxford Companion)

Andrew Hadfield on Edmund Spenser (video)

A lecture on Spenser and The Faerie Queene (Adam Crowley)



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16th-century England: The historical and literary context

Tudor dynasty:
Henry VII r. 1485-
Henry VIII (r. 1509-1547; Reformation, 1529-39),
    - Edward VI (1547-53),
    - Mary Tudor (1553-58),
    - Elizabeth (r. 1558-1603) - The Armada, 1588


Religious writings:

- The Book of Common Prayer (1549-)

Biblical translations:
- William Tyndale; Miles Coverdale; 

- The Bishops' Bible.
- (Later: King James Bible or "Authorized Version" in 1611)

Scottish reformers:
John Knox, Sir David Lindsay, George Buchanan. 

 

Petrarchan poets (Tottel's Miscellany, 1557):

- Sir Thomas Wyatt
- Earl of Surrey  
  


Rhyme scheme of the Elizabethan sonnet: 

abab cdcd efef gg


Prose writers:

Sir Thomas More, Utopia. 1516 (English, 1551).
 

Sir Thomas Elyot, The Governour. 1531.
 

Sir John Cheke, The Hurt of Sedition. 1549.
 

Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique. 1553.
 

John Foxe, Book of Martyrs (Actes and Monuments). 1563.
 

Roger Ascham, The Scholemaster. 1570.
 

Raphael Holinshed, Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland. 1577.
 

John Lyly. Euphues. Romance. 1578.
 

William Camden, Britannia. Geography. 1586.
 

Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation. 1589.
 

Sir Walter Ralegh, The Discovery of Guiana. 1596.

 


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Recordad que seguimos añadiendo nuevos autores en la Sección B (tema 6).

 

 

Tema 1: Literatura inglesa medieval

viernes, 16 de octubre de 2020

Shakespeare (NIVEL AVANZADO)


SECCIÓN A, NIVEL AVANZADO:

- Unas notas sobre Shakespeare del Oxford Companion.

William Shakespeare (audio de la BBC, In Our Time).

- Una introducción a la literatura de la época isabelina:
Lee, Sidney. "The Elizabethan Age of English Literature." In Cambridge Modern History. Online:
http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/camenaref/cmh/cmh311.html
 


- UNA EXCELENTE SERIE DE LA BBC SOBRE SHAKESPEARE: IN SEARCH OF SHAKESPEARE: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5nu0oj  

- Uno de los sonetos que comentamos se puede examinar más despacio aquí: Soneto, espejo, reloj, bloc y libro.

 

-  "La reforma protestante y la cultura inglesa (1550-1800)." Conferencia de Tim Blanning, en inglés y español, en la Fundación Juan March.
    http://www.march.es/conferencias/anteriores/voz.aspx?id=2893&l=1



- Quizá la mejor versión fílmica de Macbeth de Shakespeare sea la de Roman Polanski, si la podéis localizar. 

- Una versión teatral reciente:


 

 (Nuestra selección: min. 1.36.52)


Y en YouTube también podéis encontrar la versión de TVE (Estudio 1) en español.


Una versión cinematográfica de La Tempestad (The Tempest, dir. Julie Taymor).

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A quien le interese el tema shakespeareano de la teatralidad de la vida, o el mundo como teatro, puede seguir un blog que llevo sobre la cuestión, El Gran Teatro del Mundo: https://thishugestage.blogspot.com/


Aquí unas notas sobre un sociólogo, Erving Goffman, que comparte esta visión dramatística de la vida social: The Dramaturgic Analogy.

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William Shakespeare

From The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. Margaret Drabble.



SHAKESPEARE, William (1564-1616), dramatist, man of the theatre, and poet, baptized in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon, on 26 Apr. 1564. His birth is traditionally celebrated on 23 Apr., which is also known to have been the date of his death. He was the eldest son of John Shakespeare, a glover and dealer in other commodities who played a prominent part in local affairs, becoming bailiff and justice of the peace in 1568, but whose fortunes later declined. John had married c. 1557 Mary Arden, who came from a family of higher social standing. Of their eight children, four sons and one daughter survived childhood.

The standard and kind of education indicated by William's writings are such as he might have received at the local grammar school, whose records for the period are lost. On 28 Nov. 1582 a bond was issued permitting him to marry Anne Hathaway of Shottery, a village close to Stratford. She was eight years his senior. A daughter, Susanna, was baptized on 26 May 1583, and twins, Hamnet and Judith, on 2 Feb. 1585. We do not know how Shakespeare was employed in early manhood; the best authenticated tradition is *Aubrey's: 'he had been in his younger yeares a Schoolmaster in the Country.' This has fed speculation that he is the 'William Shakeshafte' named in the will of the recusant Alexander Houghton, of Lea Hall, Lancashire, in 1581, and in turn that he had Catholic sympathies.

Nothing is known of his beginnings as a writer, nor when or in what capacity he entered the theatre. In 1587 an actor of the Queen's Men died through manslaughter shortly before the company visited Stratford. That Shakespeare may have filled the vacancy is an intriguing speculation. The first printed allusion to him is from 1592, in the pamphlet *Greenes Groats-Worth of Witte, ostensibly by R. *Greene but possibly by *Chettle. Mention of 'an upstart Crow' who 'supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you' and who 'is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a country' suggests rivalry, and parody of a line from 3 *Henry VI shows that Shakespeare was established on the London literary scene. He was a leading member of  the Lord Chamberlain's Men soon after their refoundation in 1594. With them he worked and grew prosperous for the rest of his career as they developed into London's leading company, occupying the *Globe Theatre from 1599, becoming the King's Men on James I's accession in 1603, and taking over the Blackfriars as a winter house in 1608. He is the only prominent playwright of his time to have had so stable a relationship with a single company.

Theatrical life centred on London, which necessarily became Shakespeare's professional base, as various records testify. But his family remained in Stratford. In 1596 his father applied, successfully, for a grant of arms, and so became a gentleman; in August William's son Hamnet died, and was buried in Holy Trinity churchyard. In October Shakespeare was lodging in Bishopsgate, London, and in May of the next year he bought a substantial Stratford house, New Place. His father died in 1601, and in the following year William paid £320 for 127 acres of land in Old Stratford. In 1604 he lodged in London with a Huguenot family called Mountjoy. In the next year he paid £440 for an interest in the Stratford tithes, and there in June 1607 his daughter Susanna married a physician, John Hall. His only granddaughter, Elizabeth Hall, was christened the following February; in 1608 his mother died and was buried in Holy Trinity.

Evidence of Shakespeare's increasing involvement with Stratford at this time suggests that he was withdrawing to New Place, but his name continues to appear in London records; in Mar. 1613, for instance, he paid £140 for a gatehouse close to the Blackfriars Theatre, probably as an investment. In the same month he and the actor R. *Burbage received 44 shillings each for providing an impresa to be borne by the Earl of Rutland at a court tourney. In Feb. 1616 his second daughter Judith married Thomas Quiney, causing her father to make alterations to the draft of his will, which he signed on 25 Mar. He died, according to the inscription on his monument, on 23 Apr., and was buried in Holy Trinity. His widow died in 1623 and his last surviving descendant, Elizabeth Hall, in 1670.

Shakespeare's only writings for the press (apart from the disputed 'Funeral Elegy' of 1613) are the narrative poems *Venus and Adonis and *The Rape of Lucrece, published 1593 and 1594 respectively, each with the author's dedication to Henry Wriothesley, earl of Southampton, and the short poem *'The Phoenix and the Turtle', published 1601 in Robert Chester's Loves Martyr, a collection of poems by various hands. His *Sonnets, dating probably from the mid-1590s, appeared in 1609, apparently not by his agency; they bear a dedication to the mysterious 'Mr W.H.' over the initials of the publisher, Thomas Thorpe. The volume also includes the poem 'A Lover's Complaint'.

Shakespeare's plays were published by being performed. Scripts of only half of them appeared in print in his lifetime, some in short, sometimes manifestly corrupt, texts, often known as 'bad quartos'. Records of performance are scanty and haphazard: as a result dates and order of composition, especially of the earlier plays, are often difficult to establish. The list that follows gives dates of first printing of all the plays other than those that first appeared in the 1623 Folio.

Probably Shakespeare began to write for the stage in the late 1580s. The ambitious trilogy on the reign of Henry VI, now known as *Henry VI Parts 1, 2, and 3, and its sequel *Richard III, are among his early works. Parts 2 and 3 were printed in variant texts as The First Part of the Contention betwixt the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster (1594) and The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York (1595). Henry VI Part I may have been written after these. A variant quarto of Richard III appeared in 1597. Shakespeare's first Roman tragedy is *Titus Andronicus, printed 1594, and his earliest comedies are *The Two Gentlemen of Verona, *The Taming of the Shrew (a derivative play, The Taming of a Shrew, was printed 1594), *The Comedy of Errors (acted 1594), and *Love's Labour's Lost (printed 1598). All these plays are thought to have been written by 1595.

Particularly difficult to date is *King John: scholars still dispute whether a two-part play, The Reign of John, King of England, printed 1591, is its source or (as seems more probable) a derivative. *Richard II, printed 1597, is usually dated 1595. For some years after this, Shakespeare concentrated on comedy, in *A Midsummer Night's Dream and* The Merchant of Venice (both printed 1600), *The Merry Wives of Windsor (related to the later history plays, and printed in a variant text 1602), Much Ado about Nothing (printed 1600), *As You Like it (mentioned in 1600), and Twelfth Night, probably wirtten in 1600 or soon afterwards. *Romeo and juliet (ascribed to the mid-1590s) is a tragedy with strongly comic elements, and the tetralogy begun by Richard II is completed by three comical histories: *Henry IV Parts I and 2, each printed a year or two after composition (Part 1 1598, Part 2 1600), and *Henry V, almost certainly written 1599, printed, in a shortened, possibly corrupt, text, 1600.

In 1598 *Meres, a minor writer, published praise of Shakespeare in Palladis Tamia: Wit's Treasury, mentioning 12 of the plays so far listed (assuming that by Henry the 4 he means both Parts) along with another, Love's Labour's Won, apparently either a lost play or an alternative title for an extant one.

Late in the century Shakespeare turned again to tragedy. A Swiss traveller saw *Julius Caesar in London in September 1599. *Hamlet apparently dates from the following year, but was only entered in the register of the Stationers' Company in July 1602; a short text probably reconstructed from memory by an actor appeared in 1603, and a good text printed from Shakespeare's manuscript in late 1604 (some copies bear the date 1605). A play that defies easy classification is *Troilus and Cressida, probably written 1602 printed 1609. The comedy *All's Well that Ends Well, too, is probably of this period, as is *Measure for Measure, played at court in December 1604. The tragedy *Othello, played at court the previous month, reached print abnormally late in 1622. *King Lear probably dates, in its first version, from 1605; the quarto printed in 1608 is now thought to have been badly printed from Shakespeare's original manuscript. The text printed in the Folio appears to represent a revision dating from a few years later. Much uncertainty surrounds *Timon of Athens, printed in the Folio from uncompleted papers, and probably written in collaboration with T. *Middleton. *Macbeth, probably adapted by Middleton, is generally dated 1606, *Antony and Cleopatra 1606-7, and *Coriolanus 1607-9.

Towards the end of his career, though while still in his early forties, Shakespeare turned to romantic tragicomedy. Pericles, printed in a debased text 1609, certainly existed in the previous year; it is the only play generally believed to be mostly, if not entirely, by Shakespeare that was not included in the 1623 Folio. Forman, the astrologer, records seeing both *Cymbeline and *The Winter's Tale in 1611. *The Tempest was given at court in Nov. 1611.

The last three plays associated with Shakespeare appear to have been written in collaboration with J. *Fletcher. They are *Henry VIII, known in its own time as All Is True, which 'had been acted not passing 2 or three times' before the performance at the Globe during which the theatre burnt down on 29 June 1613; a lost play, *Cardenio, acted by the King's Men in 1613 and attributed to the two dramatists in a Stationers' Register entry of 1653; and *The Two Noble Kinsmen, which appears to incorporate elements from a 1613 masque by F. Beaumont, and was first printed 1634. No Shakespeare play survived in authorial manuscript, though three pages of revisions to a manuscript play, Sir Thomas *More, variously dated about 1593 or 1601, are often thought to be by Shakespeare and in his hand.

It may have been soon after Shakespeare died, in 1616, that his colleagues *Heminges and Condell began to prepare Mr William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, better known as the First Folio, which appeared in 1623. Only once before, in the 1616 *Jonson folio, had and English dramatist's plays appeared in collected form. Heminges and Condell, or their agents, worked with care, assembling manuscripts, providing reliable printed copy when it was available, but also causing quartos to be brought wholly or partially into line with prompt-books. Their volume includes a dedicatory epistle to William and Philip Herbert, earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, an address "To the great Variety of Readers' by themselves, and verse tributes, most notably the substantial poem by Jonson in which he declares that Shakespeare 'was not of an age, but for all time'. Above all, the Folio is important because it includes 16 plays which in all probability would not otherwise have survived. Its title-page engraving, by Droeshout, is, along with the half-length figure bust by Gheerart Janssen erected in Holy Trinity, Stratford, by 1623, the only image of Shakespeare with strong claims to authenticity. The Folio was reprinted three times in the 17th cent.; the second issue (1664) of the third edition adds Pericles and six more plays. Other plays, too, have been ascribed to Shakespeare, but few scholars would add anything to  the accepted canon except part (or even all) of *Edward III, printed anonymously 1596.

Over 200 years after Shakespeare died, doubs were raised about the authenticity of his works (see BACONIAN THEORY). The product largely of snobbery—reluctance to believe that a man of humble origins wrote many of the world's greatest dramatic masterpieces—and of the desire for self-advertisement, they are best answered by the facts that the monument to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon compares him with *Socrates and *Virgil, and that Jonson's verses in the Folio identify the author of that volume as the 'Sweet Swan of Avon'.

The documents committed to print between 1593 and 1623 have generated an enormous amount of varied kinds of human activity. The first editor to try to bring them into order, reconcile their discrepancies, correct their errors, and present them for readers of his time was the dramatist *Rowe, in 1709. His 18th-cent. successors include *Pope (1723-5), *Theobald (1733), Dr *Johnson (1765), *Capell (1767-8), and *Malone (1790; third variorum 1821 by James Boswell the younger, out of Malone's edition). The most important 19th-cent. edition is the Cambridge Shakespeare (1863-6l, rev. 1891-3), on which the Globe text (1864) was based. The American New Variorum edition, still in progress, began to appear in 1871. Early in the 20th cent. advances in textual studies transformed attitudes to the text. Subsequent editions include *Quiller Couch's and J. Dover *Wilson's New Shakespeare (Cambridge, 1921-66), G. L. Kittredge's (1936), Peter Alexander's (1951) and the Riverside (1974). The Arden edition appeared originally 1899-1924; it was revised and largely replaced 1951-81. A new series, Arden 3, started to appear in 1995. The Oxford multi-volume edition (paperbacked as World's Classics) started to appear in 1982, and the New Cambridge in 1983. The Oxford single-volume edition, edited by S. Wells and G. Taylor, was published in 1986.

Great critics who have written on Shakespeare include *Dryden, Samuel Johnson, S. T. *Coleridge, *Hazlitt, A.C. *Bradley, and (lesss reverenly) G. B. *Shaw. The German Shakespeare Jahrbuch has been appearing since 1865; othe major periodicals are Shakespeare Survey (annual from 1948), Shakespeare Quarterly (from 1950), and Shakespeare Studies (annual from 1965). The standard biographical studies are E. K. *Chambers, William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems (2 vols., 1940), and S. *Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life (1975). The play scripts have been translated into over 90 languages and have inspired poets, novelists, dramatists, painters, composers, choreographers, film-makers, and other artists at all levels of creative activity. They have formed the basis for the English theatrical tradition, and they continue to find realization in readers' imaginations and in richly varied transmutations, on the world's stages.




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SHAKESPEARE:  NIVEL AVANZADO







Un blog sobre literatura inglesa (y norteamericana)

  Este blog fue utilizado como material auxiliar para una asignatura del grado de Lenguas Modernas en la Universidad de Zaragoza, asignatur...